


run me like a river

by sazzafraz



Category: The Black Tapes Podcast
Genre: Alex Reagan's Sexuality is Making Journalistic Mistakes, Alternate Universe, F/F, F/M, In Regards to her Subjects, Multi, Mystery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-01
Updated: 2017-11-01
Packaged: 2019-01-27 19:09:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12588636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sazzafraz/pseuds/sazzafraz
Summary: “I mean,” Emily DuMont says, “if you want to talk about ghosts you have to talk about the Strands.”Alex puts down her glass of lukewarm beer, hand covering her recorder from the condensation. “I’m sorry?”“Fifteen years ago a...colleague of ours, Richard Strand, disappeared by the side of the road. His wife, Coralee, also disappeared for a month or so. When they found her she was delirious and covered in these weird symbols. All alone in a cabin way out in California. She couldn’t remember anything about what happened to her. She was questioned about her husband’s disappearance but nothing came of it.”“What happened to Richard?”Emily shrugs. “That’s, quite literally, the million dollar question.”





	run me like a river

**Author's Note:**

> This was meant to be up earlier but a) I forgot they were turning off my electricity and used my laptop til it died and b) I had to listen to like three episodes to try and figure out any basic facts about this universe because the wiki sucks. How old is Simon Reese? HOW OLD IS SIMON REESE? When does shit happen in this universe? How old is anyone? I don't know. 
> 
> The general point of this series is to see if I can write a complicated mystery. Lets see how this goes. The rating is subject to change.

“I mean,” Emily DuMont says, “if you want to talk about ghosts you have to talk about the Strands.”

Alex puts down her glass of lukewarm beer, hand covering her recorder from the condensation. “I’m sorry?”

“Fifteen years ago a...colleague of ours, Richard Strand, disappeared by the side of the road. His wife, Coralee, also disappeared for a month or so. When they found her she was delirious and covered in these weird symbols. All alone in a cabin way out in California. She couldn’t remember anything about what happened to her. She was questioned about her husband’s disappearance but nothing came of it.”   

“What happened to Richard?”

Emily shrugs. “That’s, quite literally, the million dollar question.”

Alex fakes taking another sip of her beer. Let Emily DuMont be the voice of this. “Oh?”

“There’s a reward for anyone with information about what happened to Richard Strand. And I mean  _ anyone.  _ Police, psychics, talking dogs. Anyone who can tell Coralee Strand what happened to Richard and  _ prove  _ that what they know is true gets a million.”

“Wow,” Alex licks her suddenly dry lips, “that’s...”

“Crazy? Yeah.” Emily tilts her head back against the aged wood of the pub booth. “Richard was certainly strong willed. Smart, handsome, dedicated, but a million dollars...It’s his money too. She got all of it along with custody of his daughter.”

“You don’t sound supportive.”

“I don’t think I had a civil conversation with Strand in his life but something about that woman...” Emily shakes her head. “No one deserves to just disappear like that.”

“Yeah.” Alex swallows compulsively. “That’s true.” 

\--

The thing is, Alex doesn’t actually need to look up a picture of Richard Strand. A dozen different ghost hunters have told her a version of his story. Some of them have even told her of their attempts to earn the million. Richard Strand was: enigmatic, a bastard, brilliant, cold, furious, intense, overwhelming. He is, by all accounts blue eyed and dark haired, more capable of cutting then complementing, but possessed of just enough wit to let you in on a joke. She has seen a dozen paragraphs across half as many papers on the  _ craze  _ this million dollar hunt caused in the press. Woman appears out of nowhere covered in satanic symbols, gets arrested for then acquitted of her husband’s murder, gains his substantial fortune and uses it to fund research into the supernatural, setting aside over a million for information about said husband.  _ The Blue Widow _ is what the press called her for those few months they cared, after the oil slick blue colour of  _ whatever  _ was used to paint those symbols on her. The coverage died down but the million dollars is still there.  

Private detectives, clairvoyants, ghost hunters, satanists, a honest to god coven. Whatever information they had wasn’t enough.  

Technically this series is on interesting careers but a  _ missing persons case.  _ This could be her  _ serial.  _ She made plans to visit Coralee Strand before she started thinking about  _ Richard  _ Strand but if you’ve got inspiration you should use it. That was her professor’s attitude anyway. 

The internet has some words for Richard Strand. An even cut between how hot he was and how much of an asshole he must have been. She finds one picture of him gazing over a book and yeah, she gets it. Both sides of the argument.    

There is one single recording of his voice. A lecture he gave on mass delusion and apophenia at a conference mere weeks before his disappearance. She bullies Nic into doing the techy stuff and putting it on her phone for the drive to Seattle University where Coralee is currently doing a guest speaker program on ethical dilemmas. 

“Apophenia,” a deep, rich voice starts, “is the distance between the rational mind and the irrational one. For some it’s mere inches: those are your believers. For the rest of us it’s the understanding that the mind will always seek a connection between two points no matter how illogical those points might be.”   

Her mind paints a picture: a cool intelligence, an enigmatic smile. Maybe a fondness for leather and coffee, something that matches the polarising, uncompromising nature of his life. His voice adds a texture to her thoughts. Already she’s thinking of how she could cut this into the show: apophenia, to go along with the naked belief of everyone else. A  _ no  _ to go with her  _ yes.  _ The excitement of a new lead curdles in her stomach. What the hell is she thinking going after a story like this? She’s already proven she can’t be trusted.

She turns off Richard’s voice as he’s winding down, a story about nuns or something, and packs up her bag. She finds Coralee’s office by following a starry eyed art student to a little corner of the philosophy department. The room is narrow but deep, a desk and a huge wingback chair taking up the lionshare of the space. Alex knocks. 

“In a moment.” Coralee continues to look down at her notebook. She folds a piece of paper into a large ragged book. Her voice is clear and sharp. Unaccented. Alex is already thinking of ways to describe her. Her skirt comes down tight to below her knees. Her blouse is a shimmering green. Peeking out from the loose bow at the front is a string of ash and charcoal pearls. Her shoes are low heeled and undoubtedly expensive, the same flat grey colour that streaks through her red hair. With her mouth slightly open she presses her tongue to the seal of an envelope. Alex gets a weak kneed feeling watching her,  _ this  _ is what a story looks like.

Her mother began softening her makeup at forty because _it just shows everything Alexandria._ Alex prefers not to draw attention beyond glossy lips. She has worn more confronting make up but that was years ago when she had a personal life. Coralee Strand wears a dark lip like a weapon and her pearls like a gun. Alex knocks again.

“It has not yet been a moment.” Coralee grumbles. She glances up and does a double take. “Alex, right? Of the eleven messages?”

“That’s me.” Alex smiles. “Ms Strand?”

Coralee leans back in her tall imposing chair, one elbow on the wide arm. “That’s what my license says. I’m sorry for the late meeting but it’ll have to be a short one unless you’re free for dinner.”

“I, um, am?”  

“Is Italian okay?”

“Yes?” Alex has got to stop asking questions.

“Good.” Coralee stands. She’s tall, very tall. Her long, loose hair curls around her angular face causing the light to catch her expressive green eyes. “The only other option is Thai and I’ve already done that.”

Coralee can’t cook. She also has no problem being recorded as long as they sit outside so she can vape (‘I quit years ago but sometimes the urge still comes’) and Alex keeps her white cream sauce to herself (‘Charlie gave me food poisoning. She can’t cook either.’) She is also unsurprised that Alex wants to talk to her. No matter how many times she insists that this is a one off show and that it’s just so Alex can have a good ending Coralee doesn’t seem to believe her. When she lets the topic turn to Richard, Coralee leans forward and holds her gaze as if she can see how unsatisfied  _ Alex  _ would be with Richard Strand’s disappearance as a mere footnote.  

“I was hoping sheer fury at the desecration of the scientific method would induce him to call me, at least to cuss me out.” Coralee says dryly. “He wasn’t the best at holding his temper.”

Coralee, Alex can assume, is just the opposite. 

“Was?” Alex asks quietly.

Coralee places her cutlery down carefully, her hands twitch as she folds them carefully out of sight. “Would it be wrong of me to still think otherwise?” She tries a wry smile. “I try not to lie to myself. Self delusion doesn’t help anyone but fifteen years...If he isn’t dead Ms Reagan, then whatever he  _ is  _ had better be extraordinary.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Are you?” Coralee says without anger. “You’re asking for a reason.”

“That isn’t...” Alex breathes in. “I can’t say that your husband's disappearance isn’t interesting but it’s not the focus of this series. It would be inappropriate to change course, let alone the damage these investigations do to families, and you have a daughter. If I could even get approval-”

“Alex.” Coralee’s eyes glitter with amusement. “I just wanted to know if you intended to mention the money.”

“Oh.”

“But.” Coralee returns her hands to the table. “Even if it’s just to mutter about my betrayal of my common sense, I do want to hear from my husband. One more time. Hence the mediums. I know already how silly that is. How ridiculous for an academic. But I...I want an opportunity. I looked you up. You did very thorough work on those cold cases when you were still in Toronto. I’d like to give you something.”

“Is it a million dollars?”

Coralee bursts out laughing. “Sorry.” She waves her hand. “Very good Alex. No, it’s a tape. From the last thing my husband worked on. He was tracking ‘mysterious demonic possessions’ across the Pacific Northwest. It’s yours on two conditions,” she adds when Alex can’t control her interest, “you bring your own VHS player.”

“And the second?”

“If you do see something,” Coralee holds her gaze, “you’ll look into my husbands disappearance.”

\--

Much to her shame, if not her surprise, Alex spends fifteen minutes with her vibrator that night.

It’s an absolutely absurd combination of nerves, a lifelong thing for tall slightly mean women, and the weirdest kink in the known universe. Namely, the thing she has for the ephemeral nature of a new story. All the excitement that gets twisted into the world's weirdest fascination/orgasm. She has told Nic several times that she could have an emotionally, physically and sexually satisfying relationship with her work and she was not joking at all. Besides, Nic Silver has been tripped and cornered into all his relationships, he can’t say shit.   

Speaking of. She pulls her pants up, starfishes on her bed and dials Nic. He takes awhile to answer. “Coralee has a proposition for me.”

“You can’t sleep with sources,” Nic says offhand.

“I’m not? That was always your problem anyway.”

“Hey.” Nic switches ears. She can hear the tv muffled behind him. “That was once and I didn’t realise.”

“Uh huh.” Alex smirks. “She wants me to look into her husband’s work. How far off base am I?”

Nic gets what she means. “I think it’s fine. It’s part of the story.”

Alex bites her lip. “Right.”

“ _ Alex. _ ”

“And,” she continues. “If I see something she wants me to run with it. Make it a podcast.”

“Are you sure?”

“What does that mean.”

“It means,” Nic says carefully, “that you can be pushy.”

“This isn’t like the last one.” Alex replies quietly. 

“Good.” Nic sighs. “If you think you can manage both finishing up the pilot and looking into the Strands I’ll see what I can do with Terry and Paul. But if you do decide to make it a show it’ll be you pitching it. I’ve just started something.”

“This wouldn’t be Tanis would it?” 

“It would be. Stay safe Alex.”

“Yeah.” She hangs up. 

It’s not that Nic is wrong to worry. Or that she doesn’t appreciate it. Three months ago Alex finished what was meant to be her first PNWS solo. It was intense, for lack of a better word. She went deep into an inner darkness she never knew she had and if it hadn’t been for Nic’s support, for the stern words of a few family and a sudden appearance of self preservation she’d have lost more than a story. A lot more. 

The Strand thing can’t be like that. The man has been gone years. It’s not just psychic’s who’ve looked for him. It’s detectives and lawyers and youtubers. There’s already been another podcast about him. About Coralee.

She starts there, mostly to see if she can include it as a shout out. The podcasters are a pair of brothers. One is a PI and the other is a retired football player with a fascination for the supernatural. It’s neither here nor there on a professional level. Alex speeds up to the real content. 

They start with a basic rundown: Fifteen years ago a rocky marriage exploded in the worst way. Richard and Coralee were caught on camera yelling at a gas station. Richard storms off down the side of the road. Coralee gets in the car. After ten minutes of nothing, except for a call lasting less than half a minute, Coralee jumps out of the car and goes storming after her husband. The gas station owner comes out about twenty minutes later to find both of them missing. There’s a manhunt, messages from Coralee’s delirious and terrified family, one single plea from Charlotte Strand and then nothing. For some reason the search for Richard is called off. The focus is changed to Coralee. 

The podcasters offer a few explanations: women are more valuable than men, a recording from the sheriff's office of him talking to someone reassuring them that things are ‘as arranged’, Coralee’s parents stating that they never liked Richard and he probably murdered her and went on the lamb. No one, she notes, makes any attempt to defend that.

Weeks pass. The news is fascinated, not least because Richard and Coralee are  _ beautiful.  _ Haughty, unattainable and haunting in their tailored clothes. Coralee’s parents produce a picture from a short stint as an actress: a headshot of her gazing beseechingly at the viewer. 

Alex has seen those eyes up close. The picture doesn’t have even half of it.

A hunter visits his cabin out of season. He’s heard rumors of strange noises at night. A woman crying. He takes his gun and his hunting shoes pushes open the door and finds a naked woman, red hair blending into the blood and the muck drawn on her. There’s a single photo of Coralee’s long back, the red scratches and the awful symbols covering her from nape to the swell of her ass. Alex touches the photo reverently, with repulsion. 

Coralee is only passingly considered a suspect in her husband’s disappearance. The station leaks her medical reports: she was restrained for days, maybe weeks. If anything, a local paper points out, she was his victim. Or perhaps, another allows, they both fell prey to something else. 

Coralee returns to society on the anniversary of their disappearance. A girl with skin more than a few shades darker and sharp blue eyes stands next to her. Charlotte Strand in her  _ only  _ public appearance. She announces the million dollar prize for  _ any  _ information from  _ any  _ source about her husband. A month laughter the Strand Institute for Paranormal Research is opened. 

Richard Strand was a professional skeptic, one of the hosts points out, this is the very last thing he would have wanted. 

Maybe Coralee’s betting on that.

Alex switches it off. She finds the post mortem of true crime shows disturbing and uncomfortable. 

A few things aren’t interrogated enough. For one the only people who seem to take that call seriously are a few newspapers who all seem to decide that it was a call to her parents and that no one need be alarmed. She sends a few messages about that, first to Coralee and then to those same newspapers, and finally to the podcasters. She would much rather have too much information and work through it by process of elimination than keep having to check and double check what she’s doing. That done she packs up and heads home to sleep. 

The moment her head hits the pillow she’s plunged into a restless tangle of darkness. Faces appear and fade like flashes of light. Too many legs. Too many teeth. She tosses and turns in her blankets but every time she tries to get up something pulls her down again.  _ Shh.  _ Just lie down.  _ Shh. It’s just beginning.  _ The dream fades at the edges into some amorphous feeling of anxiety but she still feels eyes on her, as if something awful has been let through a door.

\--

All her information lands in her inbox at the same time. The other podcast helpfully gives them all of their not entirely awful research as well as transcripts for each episode. Maybe it’s just their voices but having the actual written word helps. She spots a few names she didn't pick up listening and sends them onto Nic to send on to the interns for research. On a whim she opens her email to find a rather large amount of alerts.  __

She finds Nic hunched over his work table surrounded by maps. “Why is the google search going off?” 

“You haven’t heard?” Nic gapes at her. Less impressive when you have sticky tape on your nose. “Coralee Strand was on the news.”

Nic is exaggerating. Coralee was shanghai-ed mid-interview by an over enthusiastic reporter. Locally the guy is known for being bad with boundaries and a sexist pig. He leans across his partner, the woman leading the story on Seattle alumni descending en masse for a technology and education expo, grabs the mike and asks, “Is it true that they found a gun near Redwood National Park, not far from the cabin where you were found nearly fifteen years ago?”

Coralee, who up to that point had been having a polite intelligent conversation about ethics in journalism, replies, “What?”

The man -she wants to say Roger? Harvey? Harold? Damn- continues. “A maintenance worker for a nearby ecological conservation initiative. It matches one that was registered to you.”

Coralee stiffens. “I haven’t owned a gun since the eighties.”

Roger-Harvey-Harold smirks. “Yes, Mrs Strand.” 

“A gun.” Coralee is visibly losing patience. “A  _ gun.  _ What company was this?”

“Ah, Ganymede Tech owns the plant.”

“Ganymede.” Coralee repeats. “Ganymede Tech runs a conservation project?”

“Yes.” He leans in, across his visibly distressed coworker. “Mrs Strand-”

“It may have been my gun.” Coralee allows. “Possibly. But even if it was it has not been in my possession for decades and it has nothing to do with my unfortunate incident or my husband's disappearance. I have been in residence at Seattle University, I have taught classes, my students and colleagues have seen me. I did not have time to drive cross state and murder hikers with a gun registered in my own name. Unless and until the police prove otherwise I  _ expect  _ to be left alone.” Coralee stands and walks out. 

“Mrs-”

It’s  _ barely  _ local news. Nic has a google alert for Coralee set up that only picked it up because of a website called  _ Paranet.  _ It’s a meet up chat board and resource network for supernatural occurrences in the Pacific Northwest. Nic is already famous as  _ that guy who will buy you beer in exchange for stories about the deep web.  _ He’s like an adorable pet.  __

_ The Blue Widow Strikes Again ??!!!?1,  _ a great title, sits on the front page. Coralee and Richard are pasted across one of those miscellaneous thumbnails that all youtubers seem to use. Richard has his neck slit. Coralee has red eyes and sharp teeth. 

She forwards it to herself and files it under:  _ introduction sequence?  _ Then amends it with a note:  _ can I do this to her?  _ She leaves the note, even as she knows she will ignore it. Journalism is in the thin line between what you can say, what you can prove and what can be left out. She can’t prove that Coralee is a serial killer any more than that opportunistic asshole. She also can’t not put the idea into people’s heads. It is very easy, too easy, to make a scapegoat.

So she moves on. What do you say to someone you barely know, but has asked you to look into the most haunting time of their life, when they’re publically accused of being a serial killer? 

_ I’m sorry  _ and? What?  _ I don’t believe it.  _ She doesn’t, but not because she  _ knows  _ Coralee. She could say nothing, which seems safe, until Alex uses it on the show and then it’s an attack. Does she send condolences? A card? Flowers? A clown in a clown car with tiner clowns on his head?  _ I’m sorry that your life is shitty and people are, historically, weird about missing persons but in their defence you put out  _ a million dollars  _ of your missing husbands money for information about said husband, including from the afterlife, of which he was famously skeptical.  _ Or the even more cynical part of her that looks at the facts she has: a bad marriage between two beautiful, intelligent people slips into a horror movie.  _ What did you expect when you wear your mystery like perfume, when it comes off you in waves? Did you expect a happy ending? How could you.  _

She writes.  _ I’m sorry.  _ She presses send. 

The next few days are full of editing, sound and filling in the little details. Doing her due diligence on two episodes. The first is done soon enough. She does end up using Richard Strand’s  _ apophenia  _ speech in the opening. It lays against Emily DuMont’s firm belief like a one time lover. Both of them so resolute that Alex knows it is a  _ great  _ opener but should never be repeated. Emily has her say again at the end when Alex calls her to add her opinion on what happened to Richard.

Emily snorts. “He’s dead. Clearly.”

That goes either before or after her talk with Coralee. Her speech about just wanting an answer. After Alex’s ending speech on why so many people turn to this as a profession. She likens it to her search for the story, the truth only a complete and factual narrative can bring. 

“In a way,” she reads off her tablet in the booth, “Richard Strand is right. The mind searches for the shortest distance between two points. Maybe it’s demons. Or maybe it’s that your grandma has a penchant for creepy dolls called Annabelle and an unstable mantelpiece. No matter who is right the truth is out there and it’s human nature to pursue it. I’m Alex Reagan and this has been a Pacific Northwest Stories Production.” 

It’s easily one of her cleanest and best produced pieces of work. They don’t have a name but that’s fine. This is just so she can show Terry and Paul her direction. She sends it off to them, finishes up her notes and settles down to the final sketch of Coralee’s proposal. It needs a name too. Now that she’s finished one story she has few days to properly dedicate to fleshing out the other.

Stretching out her sore back she goes in search of the interns stash of junk food. They’re still too intimidated to defend their territory.      __ __

She corners one of their new additions, ostensibly Nic’s intern but what’s his is hers. The woman is standing perplexed by a big cellophane wrapped package. Alex frowns at it too. “Is that a fruit basket?”

“Uh, yeah.” The intern looks at it dubiously. “Do you want it? I don’t eat fruit.”

“Sure.” Alex holds out her arms. “I’ve never seen one of these. This is awesome.”

“If you say so.” The intern hands her the fruit basket and tucks her mail under her chin when Alex lifts it invitingly. 

“Woo, fruit.” Alex throws behind her. She settles in what is, basically, her booth. There’s pictures of girl groups and a sticker that says  _ dibs  _ and everything. Nic was very gracious about it. The note is written in cursive.

_ Thank you for thinking of me. C.  _

Huh. Well. Fruit is fruit. 

So much of what she has on the Strands is bullshit. It really is. Maybe if the situation was reversed she’d have more to work with. Or less. But it would still be less ridiculous than what she does have. Living between respectability and ridicule is a dozen salacious, slut shaming conjectures about the breakdown of their marriage. One of them is a saint. One of them is literally the spawn of evil. She has to read it but that doesn't mean she can’t roll her eyes the whole way. 

The beginning is easy. Again: bad marriage, beautiful people. It’s the next bit that frustrates her. There are sightings of the both of them in a small coastal town about two weeks apart. The first sighting is of Coralee at a local hotel and the post office. The second is of Richard at the same post office. She calls both places. The hotel went out of business and everyone has since left town. The post office is still there run by a woman who worked there at the time. She and Alex chat for a while before she throws the hook in.

“Oh, uh.” Tina Stevenson says. “Is this recorded.”

“Yes. For a podcast. If it ends up being used and released I’ll be sure to let you know.”

“Oh.”

“Okay. So.” Alex makes sure that her recording equipment is ready. “Tell me what happened.”

“Nothing really.” Tina starts. “I saw Lisa first-”

“Lisa?”

“Yeah, the redhead? She said that was her name. I remember because she was really insistent I remember it. She came by first and then a few weeks later a man came by looking for her. Handsome fella. Very...abrupt.”

“Right. So. You told him about Lisa?”

“Hell no.” Tina says vehemently. “A woman comes by in dirty, worn clothing asking you to mail something and then some other, well dressed fella asks after her? No.”

Hold on. “Coralee, uh, Lisa was wearing odd clothes?”

“Dirty. Like she’d been in them for a week.”

Maybe she had. “And Richard, the man from a few weeks later, he was dressed well?”

“Yeah. Like tailored pants and expensive sweater. He did have this hideous beard. Like a serial killer on meth.” 

Alex laughs. She’ll have to edit that out. “You never told that to the police?”

“Did it matter?”

“I can’t say.” Alex demures. “Do you recall, or have copies of what she sent?”

“Nah,” Tina says breezily, “but I remember it was addressed to a man named Warren.”

“Warren.” Alex whispers. “No last name?”

“I didn’t see.” Tina apologises. “I didn’t tell the police that. I don’t think they asked.”

“Okay, what did the man, Richard, do?”

“He asked me about Lisa. Like I said, he was kind of rude. After awhile he got frustrated and started to leave. He stopped by the message board and ripped off this pretty poster.”

“A poster?”

“Yeah it was this thing for a local meetup, I remember because Lisa put it up with these funny pins...” Tina pauses. “Oh.”

Yeah. Oh. 

“Do you-?”

“Yes!” Tina exclaims. “The local council makes copies of every big event. This one was a historical reenactment. I can make a copy and then hold it here for you? I don’t have any way of sending it to you. They’re very strict about it.”

“Can you give me the local council’s information?” Tina does. “Okay. I’ll send someone for it. I have a few more follow up questions.”

Tina cheerfully agrees. Alex gets a few more basics down. A few details about Tina.   

“Do you remember what the meetup was?”

“Sure do.” Tina chirps. “It was for the Jacobson House. It used to be an orphanage until it burned down. People always said it was haunted.”

“Huh.” Alex jots that down. Tina is unusually quiet on the other end. “Tina? Are you okay?”

“I was just...” Tina murmurs. “Can you tell me their names? Lisa and the strange man. You said it was Carol?”

“Coralee and Richard Strand.”

“Coralee,” Tina murmurs again. “And that man. No wonder I thought he looked familiar.”

“Familiar how?”

“Well, I only ever saw him in passing you understand, and no one wanted to talk about it. With the beard he was basically unrecognisable. A kid went missing and it was -gruesome. The place is meant to be haunted.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Richard Strand. He’d been here before.”

\--

“Tell me about the Jacobson House. That’s your maiden name, right?”

The voice on the other end pauses. “Hello Alex.”  

“Why not tell the police this? That he’d been there a month earlier on a case?”

“They never asked.” Coralee sighs. “And they are of no relation to me.”

“I -is this a game of some kind Mrs Strand?”

“No.” Coralee murmurs. “I don’t play games  _ Ms Reagan. _ ”

Alex’s frustration overwhelms her. “Then  _ why _ -”

“Because you can.” Coralee says. “Because you will. Whatever reasons I have for bringing you into this know that they are based on two things: my faith in your journalistic ability and my need to know what happened to my husband.”

Coralee hangs up. Less than an hour later a black VHS tape is hand couriered to the studio in a neat package.

Nic has a VHS player because of course. Insisting that it’s  _ really  _ Terry’s and he just hasn’t had time to give it back would hold more weight if Nic wasn’t also using Terry’s basement to store the weird shit he doesn’t want to explain to his sisters when they visit. 

She texts:  _ At least tell me about the pins.  _

The tape has  _ Jacobson House, 1 of 3  _ written on it. Alex puts it aside for now pulling up what she has already. The Jacobson House was an orphanage for ‘special cases’ ranging from severe disability to homosexuality to just about anything that wasn’t socially acceptable. Over its 200 year history it has burnt down and been rebuilt four times. The most recent was about ten years ago. She finds pictures of sad children in front of a house with many forms. An old gothic Victorian, a newer ranch style, a soulless block with nothing to recommend it. That’s the thing about places like this. The only continuance is the sadness of the children living there.   

Alex’s phone buzzes. Coralee’s reply:  _ Mystery, Alex.  _

Right. She flips through what she has: police reports, news articles, statements from friends, family and colleagues. She goes back to those pins, back to the post office, and muses on what would lead two people to the same place weeks apart. The Jacobson House mystery, sure, but why there? 

A cursory search into that last fire teases at something -the boy accused of setting it is named Simon Reese, that is very familiar although she can’t put her finger on why- but mostly turns up dead. She does find one full colour, full body photo of Richard taken by a local photographer. His face is turned to the side, frowning, one hand is grasping the other showing off his wrists and- 

Coralee sent pictures from all across their marriage. She remembers one of them feeding each other wedding cake. Another close up shows the same cufflinks. She goes back to the police report where Coralee detailed in extreme detail what her husband was wearing the last time she saw him. Cufflinks detailed with  _ HS.  _ She calls Tina at the post office and gets no reply. She calls Coralee and gets no reply either.   

The cufflinks are ones Richard Strand wore on his wedding day. They’re also the ones he was wearing when he went missing. For Coralee to have them she’d have to of either stolen them before he went missing or gotten them sometime after he went on that fateful walk. 

None of that matters right now because sitting on Alex’s desk, delivered at the same time as that tape, are two silver cufflinks with  _ HS  _ printed on them. 

**Author's Note:**

> Next Time: Coralee comes by for a pointed discussion about transparency, Alex Reagan watches several scary home movies, Tannis Braun makes his necessary debut and things get even more complicated when our intrepid reporter takes a trip to the sea side. 
> 
> Also, lol, I keep having to listen to the earlier episodes and this two are so fucking weird about each other. Strand acts like he hates her half the time but if anyone ELSE says something demeaning to her you better watch out.


End file.
